Category Archives: Politics

The Health Blogosphere: What It Means for Policy Debates and Journalism:

Posted in Fun, Politics

Governmental Corporate Media

Posted on July 28, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | Comments Off

From Alex (the whole post worth reading).

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Posted in Media, Politics

MedBlogging under scrutiny

Posted on July 28, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 1 comment

The Kaiser Family Foundation is sponsoring a discussion about the growing influence of blogs on health news and policy debates. Only in the past few years has the blogosphere become mainstream. In the health policy arena, we now see policymakers, journalists, researchers and interest groups utilizing this new media tool to deliver information to their audiences. The briefing will highlight how the traditional health policy world has embraced blogging and will feature a keynote address by U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, the first cabinet officer to author an official blog, followed by a moderated discussion with a variety of health policy bloggers and a media analyst.
Questions to be explored with the panelists include: Why do individuals and organizations blog? How does blogging impact the broader work of an organization? Are there different standards used when blogging versus other writing? Have blogs impacted the news business significantly? What kind of influence are blogs having on political and policy debates?

Unfortunately, the panel is heavily skewed toward Rightwing, Bush-loving, business-only types, with the brave exception of Ezra Klein.
Annie has a lot more information worth checking out. But you should tune in tomorrow at 1pm Eastern time and pitch in. Let’s reframe their discussion so it actually gets honest.

A different view on the left versus right online debate:

Posted in Blogging, Media, Medicine, Politics

Left vs. Right online

Posted on July 26, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 3 comments

There has been a lot of chatter on the interwebs (for years, but again now) about the differences between the ways the political Left and Right use the Internet and blogs:
GOP losing the new-media war:

…….The right is engaged in the business of opining while the left features sites that offer a more reportorial model.
At first glance, these divergent approaches might not seem consequential. But as the 2008 campaign progresses, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the absence of any websites on the right devoted to reporting — as opposed to just commenting on the news — is proving politically costly to Republicans.
While conservatives are devoting much of their Internet energy to analysis, their counterparts on the left are taking advantage of the rise of new media to create new institutions devoted to unearthing stories, putting new information into circulation and generally crowding the space traditionally taken by traditional media. And it almost always comes at the expense of GOP politicians.
While online Republicans chase the allure of punditry and commentary, Democrats and progressives are pursuing old-fashioned shoe-leather reporting, in a fashion reminiscent of 2004……..

In the regular debate about about how the right can catch up online, several points are often missed. The first is that the left has developed a movement based on the interconnectedness of people inside the movement. People get recruited, energized, and leveraged. This may or may not be as much a function of larger demographic and political trends, as it has something to do with the netroots specifically.
At the same time, the right has often been better at campaign mechanics, especially in recent years. Our assumption seems to be that if we get enough people to go and vote in this country — which we still believe is just right of center — then we can win.

Rebranding via Blogging:

The web is conducive to insurgency movements. That’s been the Democrats for the last eight years. They were out of power and needed different tools. Progressives perceived that the political culture had shifted, but the Democratic Party did not shift with it, so they began telling a story about a different vision of the Democratic Party and the political system. They made fundamental criticisms of both parties and the media, and rallied a lot of people to them. They erected a very effective mechanism for bringing the party in their direction, they created a gravitational pull so the political leaders and the money people had to come to them. That has fundamentally reshaped the Democratic Party. The Republican Party, on the other hand, was perceived by most in its base as being a more effective machine.

Via Ed Cone:

What the left does better online: report, rather than just opine.
Why they had to do it: the mainstream media was “browbeaten” into ineffectiveness.

Read the entire articles for more.
Well, an anti-democratic party cannot allow its lowly prole members to do anything but follow orders. It is a hierarchical structure where all the information (hmm, talking points and lies) flow from the top down. And how much fun is it to read second-hand lies on some blog instead of first-hand lies straight from Cheney? No amount of re-branding will ever change the basic core worldview of the GOP-ers, thus they can never have anything like a bottom-up online movement, independent from the party elders, working at reshaping the party from within.

3 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Media, Politics

Global Warming, Media and Politics

Posted on July 19, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | Comments Off

Robert Grumbine has a series of posts with thoughts about climate change and what a non-expert can do to get properly informed:
Climate is a messy business:

Climate certainly is a messy business. One of the things that makes it interesting to those of us who work on it is precisely that. Wherever you look, you find something that affects climate, regardless of whether you look at permafrost, sea ice, forests, farms, rivers, factories, sunspots, volcanoes, dust, glaciers, …
So certainly we have a complicated science and certainly few people are going to understand enough of it to argue the finer points. This is true within the science as well, as few who study volcanoes and their climate effects are going to be able to argue the finer points about the role of sea ice in climate, or vice versa.
What does an honest and interested person do then? Two things as I see it. First, not all the science involved is difficult. For those parts of the science, learn the science. Anybody who can get through normal life, cook a recipe, balance a checkbook, etc., can understand the basics. One source is Jan Schloerer’s summary at http://www.radix.net/~bobg/faqs.scq.basics.html Jan was not a climate scientist, but, as I said, you don’t need to be one to understand the basics. One thing he did do (see his acknowledgements, for instance) is check with people who were to ensure that he’d gotten the science right (or at least correct given the limits of writing a general audience description). I’ll come back to basics in a minute.
Second, for things that aren’t elementary, start looking to expert opinion. No different than if your car is acting up and you can’t figure out why, or you’ve got something like a cold but it isn’t going away like one should. You go find an auto mechanic or doctor and use their expertise. If your concern is, instead, about climate, then find some climate scientists. While there aren’t that many (even counting worldwide) they do exist. And it’s not that hard to find their professional understanding. You’ll see it more directly in journals like Science and Nature than Scientific American or Discover. But both can be gotten fairly easily, and both include summaries of the science which are written for laymen.

Science not politics:

Many people have vested interests relating to climate change and thoughts about what, if anything, to do about it. That does produce politics, in that groups of people with interests act politically.
But the science is the science, and respects no party, no nation, no religion, etc.
This does make for the problem that groups with interests other than explaining and discussing the best science also establish web sites, write editorials, produce shows, etc. to propagandize their views, distorting and lying about the science along the way. So if you’re interested in the science, you have to work harder to find it than in something which doesn’t scare people. You also have to work harder to disentangle the parts of an article that are science from those which are opinion, wishful thinking, and such.
One thing which I think is helpful in deciding about sources is to, first, hold your nose about their political viewpoints. This can be hard when the politics are greatly different from yours, but bear with it. As you read through, look for scientific claims, or claims which the author thinks are scientific. As you find them, go hit the literature on the topic and see if the author has represented the point correctly. It may sound like a lot of work, but in practice, most web sites which are more concerned about their politics than the science display this fairly quickly by lies and distortions, and some are at an extremely basic level. Basic enough that you can check the truth of it by looking at a textbook from 30 years ago (before the topic was getting nearly as much press, but well after the scientific basics were understood). If not an outright lie, very often what you’ll see is a quote selected from a scientific article and removed from its context. Once you find the context, you see that the original author’s intent was quite different than the bit quoted.

Climate confusion:

Agreed about the media thing. It’s one of the things which irritates the scientists who are trying to communicate accurate, careful, correct information. People hear wild claims in the media, and then when we discuss what we really know and how well, we don’t get believed (since we’re not as extreme as the media reports, it’s no story). (‘we’ by the way doesn’t exactly include me. I haven’t talked to the media for a long time, and it wasn’t about this. Still, I do know folks who get quoted.)
One thing for you to do, with the 27,000 on either side of you, is to start looking at what they’re scientists of. It turns out that the 27k saying that climate is changing and part of the reason is human activity are climate scientists, while the 27k disagreeing are doctors, chemists, nuclear physicists, … But do the checking yourself. There’s a petition, for instance, with over 17,000 signers, but very few of them are in climate sciences (but check me on that). If your mechanic says your car needs a new belt, as do the several other mechanics you take the car to, while a bunch of doctors you know say that it doesn’t, do you get the belt or not? I get the belt. Being knowledgeable (about something) isn’t sufficient; you have to be knowledgeable about the thing at hand.

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Posted in Earth, Environment, Media, Politics, Science Education

Get politically engaged at Town Hall Grill

Posted on July 14, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | Comments Off

You know I love and often eat at Town Hall Grill in Southern Village. This is where we had our Friday Night Dinner during the last Science Blogging Conference (photographic evidence here, here, here and here) and more recently a little local meetup (see also Lenore’s review of the evening, and note she was nearby recently again).
Anyway, Town Hall Grill now has a new website (with a new URL), and the chef, Chris Burgess recently completely redesigned the menu: my old favourites (lamb kebab, chopped salad, chicken-under-the-brick, filet mignon and NY strip) are still on the menu, but there are new excellent additions: the salmon arugula salad and pork scallopini, to mention just a couple. And for a weekend lunch with beer, the marinated chicken sandwich, the cheeseburger, and the roast beef sandwich are excellent choices.
The best stuff is usually a couple of specials, something new every week – this week Mexican Meatballs, last week pork sliders – sometimes I like the special so much I go there 3-4 nights in a row just to have that before it goes off the menu.
What they have that is really interesting, is Village Voice – a series of “town hall meetings” scheduled for this year where you can come and meet local politicians. The series is designed to raise awareness, inform the voters, get people more politically engaged.

The purpose of the forum is to provide people with the opportunity to engage with political, environmental, and business leaders in a comfortable, thought provoking dialogue regarding current issues in a “town hall” style format.

I had to miss the first one (with Dr. William Lawson, Republican – Candidate for U.S. House District 4), but I will try to make it tonight (Monday, July 14th at 4pm), when local citizens can break bread with Senator Ellie Kinnaird, (Democrat – North Carolina Senate District 23). If I do, I will report about it here late tonight.

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Posted in North Carolina, Personal, Politics

New poll: voters really care about science

Posted on July 12, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | Comments Off

Voters Care About Science!:

Scientists and Engineers for America just released the results of a poll of over 1,000 Americans on how likely they would be to support candidates based upon their positions on key science and technology issues. SEA anticipated a positive reaction to the questions, but was stunned by the overwhelmingly affirmative response. Eighty-six percent of those polled, for example, say they would be more likely to vote for a candidate who is committed to preparing students with the skills they need for the 21st Century through public investments in science and technology education.

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Posted in Politics

When religion goes berserk!

Posted on July 11, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 37 comments

I guess it is unlikely you have not already heard about the big brouhaha that erupted when Bill Donohue targeted PZ Myers for showing disrespect towards a belief that made some religious nuts go crazy and violent against a child (yes, Eucharist is just a cracker, sorry, but that is just a factual statement about the world). If not, the entire story, and it is still evolving, can be found on PZ’s blog so check out the numerous comments here, here,
here, here, here, here and here.
Also see what Greg Laden and Tristero say. [Update: see also John Wilkins and Mike Dunford for some good clear thinking on the issue.]
Of course, since it is Bill Donohue, everyone’s favorite douche-bag, I went to see what is said on the blogs of my other two friends who, quite recently, had to survive the army of ogres that Donohue can send to make good people’s lives miserable – Melissa and Amanda.
On Shakesville, Jeff Fecke wrote about it.
On Pandagon, it is Jesse Taylor (yes, he is back there on his old blog) who wrote about this today (as Amanda is in a middle of a move and offline).
Both posts also triggered an interesting round of comments.
So, go and check out all those links, spend several hours immersed in this topic, and you’ll both learn a lot and get really, really angry (at whom? That’s your choice).
But while I was at Pandagon I also saw that Amanda started reading (and blogging about) Dawkins’ “The God Delusion” (I never wrote a real book review of it, but most of what I intended to say found its way into some posts of mine, e.g., here, here, here and here). The initial post triggered an interesting discussion in the comments, so Amanda added some clarifications which triggered another round of interesting comments.
The main question in both of those Pandagon thread is how to define religion. The focus is on what people believe, thus there is a lot of parsing the words going on, trying to define “God”. “personal god”, “supernatural”, etc. This is important as the second recurring question in those threads is if Stalinism/Maoism is a religion or not.
If you have been reading my blog for a very looooong time, back at the time when I used to write about religion (and politics) much more often, you may recall that I think of religion in somewhat different terms. I think that the main reason religions evolved is to ensure group cohesion. In other words, I think that the social aspect of religion is the most important one and that other aspects – beliefs, canonical works, behavioral rules, priestly hierarchy, ceremonies, etc. – are additions that in some way help ensure the group cohesion. This is why I was really mad at both Dawkins and Dennet for their outright dismissal and refusal to even consider the group-selectionist ideas of David Sloan Wilson whose book, Darwin’s Cathedral, although thin on data, is in my mind the best-laid-out hypothesis and the most promising avenue for future research on the evolution of religion. For the same reason, I think that Dawkins’ and Dennett’s infatuation with memes is misplaced and that the memetics will be pretty useless in this endeavor (or in any endeavor for that matter – it is an immature photocopy of sociology and linguistics with new terminology).
What does it really mean “group cohesion”? In the olden days, this was a feeling of belonging and loyalty to one’s own tribe – obviously maladapted to the modern world of multicultural societies, global economy, fast travel, instant communication and overpopulation. The inevitable result of group cohesion is the division of the world into an in-group and out-group. Members of the in-group are friends to be defended, while the members of the out-group, barely human, are to be detested and, when possible, killed.
For the group cohesion to work, one HAS to, by definition, feel that one’s group is superior to all other groups. This sense of superiority is enhanced by the additional “attachments” that may differ between different religious traditions, e.g., the belief in an inerrancy of the leader who gets orders directly from the group’s omnipotent god(s), various trance-inducing chants and dances, behavioral rules, sacred books, etc. All of these also promote internal policing by the group – those of “weak faith” are detected and punished mainly by other members, not necessarily by any kind of official armed forces, though some groups may use the latter as well.
In many religious traditions, the group cohesion is further enhanced by the sense of insecurity as “the other” is portrayed as much more dangerous than reality warrants – this persecution complex is a great way to ensure that all group-members “stick together” and severely punish the members who question the wisdom of the leaders, beliefs and behaviors.
In many religious traditions, the group cohesion is also enhanced by adding another layer of personal sense of insecurity – the strict sexual norms render both men and women insecure: the men do the macho man-bonding stuff in order to keep each other courageous (those who survive wars will get to breed in the end, after all), while women try to find security by exchanging sex for protection with powerful men.
To go back to the question of Stalinism/Maoism as a religion, if one looks at the religion as group coherence mechanism detached from what people believe, then the answer is Yes – those were religions (and so is being a Republican, for what that matters). But I will try to support this statement with the example I know best – that of Yugoslavia:

Continue reading →

37 Comments

Posted in Atheism, Balkans, Personal, Politics, Religion

Hopefully, in a few months, ONION will be satire again….

Posted on July 9, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 3 comments

Bush Tours America To Survey Damage Caused By His Disastrous Presidency

3 Comments

Posted in Humor, Politics

Next Generation Energy

Posted on July 9, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | Comments Off

There is a new (temporary) blog on scienceblogs.com – Next Generation Energy:

For the next three months, Seed editors and a hand-picked team of guest bloggers will delve into energy policies of all kinds–from carbon capture to windmills.
Every Wednesday, we’ll post a new topic or question about alternative energy on the blog. In the days following, our expert guess bloggers will post their answers to the question, and respond to questions and comments from readers.
So without further ado, here’s our first week’s question:
Our oil supplies are down. And with rising concerns of global food supplies, the loudly touted ethanol now seems to be a no-go, too. So, in the coming years, what do you think will become the world’s most viable alternative energy solution?

You can get acquainted with the bloggers here. Join the conversation.

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Posted in Earth, Environment, Politics

He’s in the media a lot lately….

Posted on July 9, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 1 comment

You can watch John Edwards give a keynote address about “The Challenge of Reducing Poverty” at the 2008 Campus Progress National Conference in Washington, DC. on C-Span3 and hear him talk about campaign and about poverty on NPR’s Talk of the Nation.

Edwards, Rove to face off in UB debate:

Posted in Politics

A very nice article about Pam’s House Blend

Posted on July 7, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | Comments Off

My friend, neighbor and uber-blogger Pam Spaulding, has an article about her in today’s New & Observer. Very nice! Good read. And also, Happy Birthday, Pam – what a great present you got from the corporate media today 😉

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Posted in Blogging, North Carolina, Politics

Fun to watch: the Edwards-Rove debate

Posted on July 4, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 5 comments

Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain might not burn up the campaign trail around Western New York this election year, but the University at Buffalo may have scheduled the next best thing.
GOP strategist Karl Rove and former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards will debate the issues of the presidential campaign Sept. 26 as part of the university’s Distinguished Speakers Series, The Buffalo News has learned.
As surrogates for the parties’ standard bearers, the two also could square off more than once at other locations around the nation.

[hat-tip: MLDB]

5 Comments

Posted in Politics

Jesse Helms has died

Posted on July 4, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 4 comments

There is no need to say anything at this moment because it is not nice to say ugly stuff about the dead.
Before coming to the US, as a kid not interested in politics, and certainly not in US politics, Helms was one of the rare American politicians I have heard of – mostly as an example how the US electoral system sometimes enables utterly unfit people to reach high levels of power. We laughed.
Ten years ago, one of the questions I had to answer when becoming a US citizen, was “who are the current US senators representing NC?” I said “Jesse Helms and Lauch Faircloth, hopefuly not for much longer.” A couple of months later, my first vote in any US election was against Faircloth who was defeated then by John Edwards. Helms resigned later.
What is interesting to watch today is how news media and blogs are trying mightily to say something, anything nice about the guy. For instance, Powerline blog starts a ridiculous eulogy with “Former Senator Jesse Helms, the great anti-Communist, has died.” Anti-Communist? Is that what is important? The ghosts of Red Scare? Who cares any more? How is that more important to point out than all the other “anti”s that Helms was?
See how this was covered by NYTimes, Raleigh News & Observer and Charlotte Observer. Compare to Pam Spaulding.

Posted in Politics

Happy Birthday!

Posted on July 3, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 2 comments

Happy birthday to Elizabeth Edwards, the most inspiring person on the US political scene since I started paying attention a couple of decades ago….

Posted in Politics

Innovation 2008: 14 questions for Presidential Candidates regarding Science and Technology

Posted on July 2, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | Comments Off

Check this out, from the ScienceDebate 2008 team: 14 Questions the candidates for President should answer about Science & America’s Future.
Compare to my questions (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6).

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Posted in Politics

Domestic Propaganda much better done than Foreign Propaganda

Posted on June 20, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | Comments Off

From ProPublica: Coming Sunday: A 60 Minutes and ProPublica Investigation:

’60 Minutes’ and ProPublica Investigation Finds the Government’s $100 Million a Year Broadcasts to the Arab World are Woefully Mismanaged and Poorly Supervised Despite Complaints From Congress. In Their First Joint Investigation, They Uncover Internal Documents from Diplomats Complaining about the Poor Quality of Al Hurra’s Broadcast and Its Lack of Transparency and Professionalism.

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Posted in Politics

Ask your Congressmen about science

Posted on June 20, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | Comments Off

You can get all the relevant information and link here:
ACTION ALERT: Ask your Congressman about science today!:

The November election will be a critical moment for U.S. science. It’s important that voters know where their candidates stand on issues such as climate change, the environment, and soaring energy prices.
With one voice, SEA and 15 prominent scientific and engineering societies are asking all Congressional candidates 7 questions on the science and technology policies that affect all of our lives. These questions were created collaboratively, with input from SEA members. (Thanks!) We’ve sent them to all of the candidates where primaries have been held so far.
Candidates are much more likely to answer if you ask, too! It’s simple; just find your candidates using the zip code search and email them from their SHARP profile pages. Let them know that you think science and technology policy is central to our country’s future. Their answers will be posted on the SHARP for all to see.
We’d like to flood their in boxes today with hundreds of emails from concerned citizens. Politicians pay attention to their voters, and together we can show that there is a constituency for science. We can make science and technology a prominent part of the 2008 elections.

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Posted in Politics

Virginity Pledges Among the Willing, and Defining “Willing”

Posted on June 15, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 1 comment

I briefly noted this study yesterday, but now W. D. Craft analyzes it in great detail:

I am pessimistic that the authors’ more careful conclusions and recommendations will be noticed. Instead I fear we’re in for more naive calls for “abstinence education” and coerced virginity pledges.

Posted in Ideology, Politics, Reproductive Health, Sex, Society

Will there be terrorist attacks if Obama is the President?

Posted on June 14, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 13 comments

Obligatory Reading of the Day: The crazies and Obama:

If there is a President Obama come next Jan. 20, normal folks better brace for what the right-wing crazies have in mind. Because it’s becoming clear that they are winding themselves up now for a fresh spate of violence if Obama wins.
You can find the signs in the things they’re saying now, both on Internet forums and in the things they say when they think no one is listening.
———————-
In any event, a pattern is already developing, ranging from the Klan fellows who promise that Obama will be shot to the white supremacists who are actually rooting for him to win because they’re certain he will fail. We’re hearing a lot of language from the racist and “Patriot” right indicating that they expect a Democratic president to enact policies (particularly regarding gun control) that will inspire “civil war.” Which means they are looking for excuses to act out.
——————-
The extremist right went into remission, largely, with the election of George W. Bush; militias disbanded because their followers believed the threat of an oppressive, gun-grabbing, baby-killing “New World Order” had largely passed. They bided their time by forming Minutemen brigades. Now they can see that their “safe” era is coming to an end.
All this time, there really has been hankering for an excuse to start acting out violently, and they see any Democratic presidency as providing that excuse. But an Obama presidency in particular will do so.
——————–

Yup. There will be terrorist attacks if there is a Democratic presidents. But the perpetrators will not have dark skin.

13 Comments

Posted in Ideology, Politics, Society

How to top-down control the “grassroots”

Posted on June 12, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 5 comments

GOP-ers really do not understand the Internet, do they?
More…
(Via)

5 Comments

Posted in Politics, Technology

Obama is brilliant!

Posted on June 9, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 6 comments

Earlier today, here in Raleigh (and yes, he will contest North Carolina, and perhaps all 50 states!) at an “invitation-only” event (so no liveblogging from me, sorry), Obama killed at least three birds with one stone. In one sentence, at the very end, he got himself endeared to the three key groups of voters who are still suspicious of him: women/Hillary fans, Edwards fans, and people who do not like Obama’s health-care plan (which is obviously going to change now….).

6 Comments

Posted in Politics

Primaries are over….

Posted on June 6, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 7 comments

M. LeBlanc: Playing Cards
Melissa McEwan: For the Record
Echidne: Why Vote For Obama? and Well Worth Reading
Neil Sinhababu: TEN GOOD REASONS FOR AN OBAMA/EDWARDS TICKET….
Amanda Marcotte: Feminists: Not really stupid
Pam Spaulding: Mike Signorile tries to bore into the ‘if not Hillary, I’m voting McCain’ logic
I understand. I followed and supported Edwards for 10 years (his 1998 Senate race, 2004 and 2008 Presidential races). I had plenty of time to come to terms with things I did not like, e.g., votes I disagreed with, etc. I also spent a lot of time and effort on oppo research – I know better than most what Obama or Clinton did or said that I did not like. And it takes time to shift – when Edwards bowed out of the race, many Edwardsians suggested he go all the way to the convention and be a “kingmaker” and stuff like that. Weeks later, we all supported either Obama or Clinton (without the emotional zeal of their early supporters) and voted appropriately in the primaries. After a few more weeks, Hillary’s supporters will come around as well. Obama is our nominee, and doing anything to help usher in the third Bush term is foolish, and Clinton supporters know it, or will understand it by November once they take a better look at the monster running on the GOP ticket.

7 Comments

Posted in Politics

Now that the primaries are over….

Posted on June 3, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 1 comment

…the Veepstakes have begun. The first poll that includes potential Veeps for Obama and McCain is now out.

Serbs vote for closer ties with Europe in huge turnaround:

Posted in Politics

The good guys won

Posted on May 11, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | Comments Off

Serbs voted for closer ties with Europe instead of isolation for the second time in three months in Sunday’s snap parliamentary poll, in a stunning turnaround that negated pre- election surveys. A pro-European coalition led by President Boris Tadic won the most votes, claiming 39 per cent of the ballots cast, overtaking the ultra-nationalist Serbian Radical Party as the largest group in parliament, the private election monitoring agency Cesid said.

Even the best of them all, the LDP, won some seats in the Parliament:

Basing its projection on a sample of some 400 key polling stations among 8,600, the traditionally reliable Cesid said another pro- European group, the Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP), won 5.2 per cent of the votes, qualifying for parliament.

A couple of weeks ago when I was in Belgrade, I watched a couple of TV debates and I was impressed at the high level of discourse. All the candidates treated the audience as intelligent and educated and explained their plans in great detail. And they were given plenty of time to do it by the TV moderators whose job was to gently steer the debate and not to grandstand like the BigHeads here do. Even the worst rightwingers explained their proposals in complex sentences and made their plans appear logically coherent. It was up to their opponents from the Left to demonstrate why such proposals, though seemingly attractive, are unworkable in practice or just plain wrong – and it appears that the audience, being intelligent and educated, understood the arguments and voted accordingly.
I wish we could have such a high level of political discourse in the media in the USA….

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Posted in Politics

Colleges should not discriminate against Martians and Tralfamadorians

Posted on May 9, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 2 comments

Our governor agrees. At least in the print version of this article which has a somehwat different title: “Easley supports college for aliens”. I wonder why they changed it for the Web version – is the editorial position that having green or purple skin disqualifies one from higher education?

Legislature wants polar bear study:

Posted in Academia, Fun, Humor, North Carolina, Politics

Conclusions First!

Posted on May 8, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 4 comments

The state Legislature is looking to hire a few good polar bear scientists. The conclusions have already been agreed upon — researchers just have to fill in the science part.

That’s how ~~little Johnny~~ Alaska lawmakers think science works, I guess…

Posted in Politics

Thanks, Jim Neal!

Posted on May 7, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | Comments Off

I wanted to write this, but Abel did it much more eloquently.

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Posted in North Carolina, Politics

NC primary

Posted on May 6, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 3 comments

I am about to go to vote. You can watch the NC results here.
Update: Pam is liveblogging the election. If you have experiences from the polling places around NC today, post them in her comments.

3 Comments

Posted in North Carolina, Politics

Science and Congress

Posted on April 7, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | Comments Off

The Science Communication Consortium presents:

Science and Congress: The Role of Think Tanks and Congressional Science Committees
Thursday, April 24, 2008
7:00-8:30pm
CUNY – 365 Fifth Avenue, NY NY (directions below)
Recent years have seen a rise in prominence of legislative issues that control how scientists work or that require scientific information for decision making. How do legislators receive this information, and what are the potential effects of distortion or misunderstanding of it on science in the United States? Join us for a discussion on how science-related think tanks and congressional science committees are involved in this process.
Panelists:
Joanne Carney, Director of the American Association for the Advancement of Scientists (AAAS) Center for Science, Technology and Congress
David Goldston, former chief of staff for the House Committee on Science and author of Nature’s “Party of One” column on Congress and science policy
Michael Stebbins, Director of the Biology Policy for the Federation of American Scientists and author of ‘Sex, Drugs & DNA’
Wine and cheese reception to follow.
Registration will open soon at NYAS.org, and will be limited to the first 70 attendees. Please check the Science Alliance portal (http://www.nyas.org/sa/) soon for more details.
Location:
Martin E. Segal Theatre
CUNY – City University of New York
365 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY

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Posted in Politics, Science Practice

Elizabeth Edwards Smacks Down McCain’s HealthCare Plan

Posted on April 2, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 2 comments

SEA will train scientists to run for office:

Posted in Politics

NIH getting serious about brain doping

Posted on April 1, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 15 comments

There have recently been several articles in the media about brain enhancers, so-called Nootropics, or “smart drugs”. They have been abused by college students for many years now, but they are now seeping into other places where long periods of intense mental focus are required, including the scientific research labs. Here is a recent article in New York Times:

So far no one is demanding that asterisks be attached to Nobels, Pulitzers or Lasker awards. Government agents have not been raiding anthropology departments, riffling book bags, testing professors’ urine. And if there are illicit trainers on campuses, shady tutors with wraparound sunglasses and ties to basement labs in Italy, no one has exposed them.
Yet an era of doping may be looming in academia, and it has ignited a debate about policy and ethics that in some ways echoes the national controversy over performance enhancement accusations against elite athletes like Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.

And here is a recent article in the Baltimore Sun:

Despite the potential side effects, academics, classical musicians, corporate executives, students and even professional poker players have embraced the drugs to clarify their minds, improve their concentration or control their emotions.

It is apparently used in business:

I’ve long thought that the use of performance enhancing drugs, typically associated with professional sports, would spread to other endeavors as science progresses. Arguably, many professionals already use chemicals to improve their performance. Constant nicotione and caffeine consumption has been endemic in the business world for a long time, and more recently prescription drugs such as Adderall have been used and abused by white collar professionals to improve focus and concentration. Chemical-assisted performance is by no means a panacea. It carries with it a host of medical and ethical questions. Yet as we gain deeper insight into the way the human brain works, we’ll inevitable be confronted with new opportunities and dilemmas such as these.

Nature also recently had a discussion on the use of brain enhancers by the academics:

Barbara Sahakian and Sharon Morein-Zamir from the Department of Psychiatry at Cambridge University argue that the increased usage of brain-boosting drugs by ill and healthy individuals raises ethical questions that cannot be ignored. An informal questionnaire Sahakian and Morein-Zamir sent to some of their scientific colleagues in the US and UK revealed fairly casual use by academics, and we now want to hear your views on the topic..

The problem is getting serious enough that an international organization has recently been founded, the World Anti-Brain Doping Authority:

The agency works to help individual academic federations implement testing procedures in the fields of academic research. It also produces a list of prohibited substances that academics are not allowed to take and maintains the World Anti Brain-Doping Code.

This is pretty scary stuff. On one hand, these drugs have not been tested very well, so nobody knows what nasty side-effects they mat have with repeated and prolonged use, so this is certainly a worry. But I thought that it was a little bit too much, or at least premature, that the NIH is jumping in on this bandwaggon, with, IMHO, quite drastic proposed measures:

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) today announced three new initiatives to fight the use of brain enhancing drugs by scientists. The new initiatives are (1) the creation of the NIH Anti-Brain Doping Advisory Group (NABDAG), a new trans-NIH committee, (2) a collaboration with the World Anti-Doping Authority (WADA) and the European Commission to create the World Anti-Brain Doping Authority (WABDA) and (3) the adoption by the NIH of the World Anti-Brain Doping Code – a set of regulations on the use of brain enhancing drugs among scientists.
“These new initiatives are designed to level the playing field among scientist in terms of intellectual activities,” said NIH Director Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D. “These three activities are designed to get NIH ahead of the curve in terms of performance enhancing drug use among scientists.”
NABDAG will serve to coordinate activities across different NIH agencies in terms of regulating the use of brain enhancing drugs. The trans-NIH group will be directed by internationally renowned doping authority Jonathan Davis, Ph.D., current director of research at WADA.
“The priority of NABDAG will be to seek out input from the scientific community and from within NIH,” Davis said. “The availability of tremendous expertise and the remarkable infrastructure at NIH will make our activities more robust and will allow us to tackle questions about brain doping that were not possible to address in the past. For example, new testing procedures will need to be developed and we will be able to bring the entire NIH infrastructure to this task.”
While “doping” is now accepted as a problem among athletes, it is less widely known that so-celled “brain doping” has been affecting the competitive balance in scientific research as well. It is for this reason that NIH is collaborating with the World Anti-Doping Authority (WADA), which has led the fight against doping in athletics, to create the World Anti Brain Doping Authority (WABDA). “Because brain doping is not just an American problem,” said Richard Pound, the current Director of WADA and acting Director of WABDA until a permanent head can be found, “we are working with the European Union’s research funding agency, the European Commission Research, to make sure WABDA is effective.
NABDAG will be established within the NIH Office of Intramural Research and administered by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Additional support for the center will come from the NIH Office of the Director, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the Center for Scientific Review (CSR). The research activities of NABDAG will take place on the NIH Bethesda campus. An additional focus of NABDAG will be to provide training opportunities for students and established scientists from developing countries and from minority groups in the United States.
Together with WABDA, NABDAG will work to develop the international rules for the use of performance enhancing drugs among scientists as well as testing and punishment procedures. Most importantly they will administer the World Anti Brain-Doping Code, a set of uniform anti-brain doping rules. The NIH and European Commission have formally adopted this Code for the conduct of all scientists which receive funding in any form (intramural or extramural) from these agencies. The Code includes regulations on which drugs are prohibited, what the recommended testing procedures should be, and what the punishments should be for positive tests. More information on the WABDA Code can be found at http://wabda.org/. We note that the implementation will include testing of all NIH funded scientists both at the time they receive funding as well as at random times during the course of working on an NIH funded project. Testing will also be implemented at all NIH-funded or NIH-hosted events such as conferences and workshops and at grant review panels.
NIMH, NIDA, and CSR are among the 27 institutes and centers at the NIH, an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services. The NIMH mission is to reduce the burden of mental and behavioral disorders through research on mind, brain, and behavior. More information is available at the NIMH website http://www.nimh.nih.gov. The National Institute on Drug Abuse is a component of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIDA supports most of the world’s research on the health aspects of drug abuse and addiction. The Institute carries out a large variety of programs to ensure the rapid dissemination of research information to inform policy and improve practice. Fact sheets on the health effects of drugs of abuse and further information on NIDA research can be found on the NIDA web site at http://www.drugabuse.gov. The Center for Scientific Review organizes the peer review groups that evaluate the majority of grant applications submitted to the National Institutes of Health. CSR recruits about 18,000 outside scientific experts each year for its review groups. CSR also receives all NIH and many Public Health Service grant applications — about 80,000 a year — and assigns them to the appropriate NIH Institutes and Centers and PHS agencies. CSR’s primary goal is to see that NIH applications receive fair, independent, expert, and timely reviews that are free from inappropriate influences so NIH can fund the most promising research. For more information, visit http://www.csr.nih.gov.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation’s Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

That’s pretty harsh, don’t you think? And if egalitarianism is the goal, this will backfire due to inherent differences between people – an insomniac like me can certainly get more done than someone else who actually gets 8 hours of sleep every day. Back in the day I did experiments that lasted 24 hours, sometimes 36 hours, a couple of times even 72 hours straight. Not everyone’s physical and mental constitution would allow for such exertion. This would actually favor people like me. And the others? Let them eat Provigil!
Then, is the next step going to be to force morning people to work only in the morning and the evening types only in the evenings?
Will research that involves mental rotation of 3D objects be limited only to female researchers, or will the men have to be handicapped in some way, perhaps by having more than 0.08% blood alcohol so the 3D objects spin faster?
There is also a dangerous potential for going down the slippery slope. Will they start adding new chemicals to the list? In my long experiments, I was also aided by copious amounts of chocolate, Coca Cola and junk food from the vending machine (and who knows what chemicals are in those!). If NIH bans caffeine, the entire business of science in the USA will grind to a halt. No coffee, no data, sorry, sir.
Environment is known to affect our cognitive abilities as well. A factor that probably helped me the most during my long experiments was the radio tuned to a local station specializing in reruns of the Rush Limbaugh show. Our technician thought it was great that Rush was speaking the Truth to the Power, while I was inclined to scream but held back as I did not want to stress my birds and thus get unreliable data (hmmm, in retrospect, does listening to Rush affects a bird directly?). Will NIH ban radios? iPods? If it does try to completely control the environment, say Good Bye to all the field work, not to mention all the research going on up on the Space Station.
But all of this is besides the point – who ever said that science should be egalitarian!? Scientists are selected and self-selected for their intelligence, curiosity and overall geekiness. It is in the interest of scientific progress that scientists always do their best, so if they want to use brain enhancers, that’s fine, its their own choice and their own sacrifice for the greater good.
I think that NIH thinks of science like running. On an even playing field, the best runner will win. But why limit oneself to running speed. Give runners additional equipment and they go faster and soon enough you will have another exciting sport – NASCAR! I think of science as NASCAR! The spoils go to the one with the best brain enhancer! And next, we will have people racing their small personal spaceships, just like in Star Wars!
And that is just how it should be. The competition should not really be between scientists, but between Science and Nature (not talking about the journals here, as anyone knows there PLoS wins, of course). And Nature is powerful, autonomous from NIH, and as we all know, loves to play dirty. So, we should use everything we can come up with to speed ourselves up. As Nature tries to hide her secrets from us, we need to deploy all our armamentaria to snatch them from her.
And that is why we need Open Access. Just sayin’ (they pay me to do this, you know?). And I even did not have my coffee yet!
Hat-tip to Jonathan who has more.

Update:
Anna has more….
Blake puts it in proper context.
Chris has a good point.
Update 2: There is more from:
Pedro
Howard
Jenna
Martin
Bob
Hsien
Steve
Andy
Genome Technology

15 Comments

Posted in Academia, Humor, Neuroscience, Politics, Psychology, Science Practice, Society, Technology

‘Generation’ is the mindset, not age

Posted on March 31, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 7 comments

Words of wisdom (via):

The internet isn’t a decoration on contemporary society, it’s a challenge to it. A society that has an internet is a different kind of society than a society that doesn’t.

I agree. And people, regardless of chronological age, appear to separate along “generational” lines, with the word “generation” really meaning how much they grok the immenseness of the societal change. It changes everything: politics, economics, media, science, environment, public health, business…. The “old” generation thinks of the Internet as yet another place to put their traditional advertising – a website as a billboard. Plus, by charging something, they may get some revenue. The “young” generation understands that traditional marketing looks awkward in the new medium and is inherently repellent. I agree with this sentiment:

On the one hand, there are those who see Web 2.0 tools as an enhancement of traditional collaboration and outreach capabilities. On the other hand – and to my mind more intriguing – there are those who believe that Web 2.0 is heralding a new business paradigm.
To the former, the failure to jump on the Web 2.0 bandwagon is a missed opportunity to tap into new audiences and fundraising possibilities. To the latter, it represents the risk to development organizations of becoming obsolete, bypassed by new players who are more adept to exploiting the innovative potential of “radical collaboration”.

This has been discussed mostly in terms of the demise of the newspaper:

Few believe that newspapers in their current printed form will survive. Newspaper companies are losing advertisers, readers, market value, and, in some cases, their sense of mission at a pace that would have been barely imaginable just four years ago.
————————
Perhaps not, but trends in circulation and advertising–the rise of the Internet, which has made the daily newspaper look slow and unresponsive; the advent of Craigslist, which is wiping out classified advertising–have created a palpable sense of doom.
———————-
In the Internet age, however, no one has figured out how to rescue the newspaper in the United States or abroad. Newspapers have created Web sites that benefit from the growth of online advertising, but the sums are not nearly enough to replace the loss in revenue from circulation and print ads.
———————–
Philip Meyer, in his book “The Vanishing Newspaper” (2004), predicts that the final copy of the final newspaper will appear on somebody’s doorstep one day in 2043. It may be unkind to point out that all these parlous trends coincide with the opening, this spring, of the $450-million Newseum, in Washington, D.C., but, more and more, what Bill Keller calls “that lovable old-fashioned bundle of ink and cellulose” is starting to feel like an artifact ready for display under glass.
Taking its place, of course, is the Internet, which is about to pass newspapers as a source of political news for American readers. For young people, and for the most politically engaged, it has already done so. As early as May, 2004, newspapers had become the least preferred source for news among younger people. According to “Abandoning the News,” published by the Carnegie Corporation, thirty-nine per cent of respondents under the age of thirty-five told researchers that they expected to use the Internet in the future for news purposes; just eight per cent said that they would rely on a newspaper. It is a point of ironic injustice, perhaps, that when a reader surfs the Web in search of political news he frequently ends up at a site that is merely aggregating journalistic work that originated in a newspaper, but that fact is not likely to save any newspaper jobs or increase papers’ stock valuation.

But more and more, this is discussed in other areas as well, especially politics:

The Drudge Report’s link to the YouTube iteration of the CBS News piece transformed it into a cultural phenomenon reaching far beyond a third-place network news program’s nightly audience. It had more YouTube views than the inflammatory Wright sermons, more than even the promotional video of Britney Spears making her latest “comeback” on a TV sitcom. It was as this digital avalanche crashed down that Mrs. Clinton, backed into a corner, started offering the alibi of “sleep deprivation” and then tried to reignite the racial fires around Mr. Wright.
The Clinton campaign’s cluelessness about the Web has been apparent from the start, and not just in its lagging fund-raising. Witness the canned Hillary Web “chats” and “Hillcasts,” the soupy Web contest to choose a campaign song (the winner, an Air Canada advertising jingle sung by Celine Dion, was quickly dumped), and the little-watched electronic national town-hall meeting on the eve of Super Tuesday. Web surfers have rejected these stunts as the old-school infomercials they so blatantly are.
Senator Obama, for all his campaign’s Internet prowess, made his own media mistake by not getting ahead of the inevitable emergence of commercially available Wright videos on both cable TV and the Web. But he got lucky. YouTube videos of a candidate in full tilt or full humiliation, we’re learning, can outdraw videos of a candidate’s fire-breathing pastor. Both the CBS News piece on Mrs. Clinton in Bosnia and the full video of Mr. Obama’s speech on race have drawn more views than the most popular clips of a raging Mr. Wright.

And politics again:

“We’re all pioneers now,” Trippi concludes. No one knows the best way to use YouTube yet, for example. (Such as your humble correspondent, who can’t even hold a Flip video straight.) “And it probably won’t be a campaign, it’ll be an individual committing an act of journalism,” he adds, for example. “No one’s perfected it, but the Obama’s campaing is closest. I envy the tools they have…. I think we’re just still seeing the first birthing of this new politics, too.” I agree.

And government:

Blue NC highlights the absurdity of Easley appointing someone who doesn’t know how to use a computer to head the committee on North Carolina’s electronic records retention policy: “Don’t try to e-mail the state about e-mail.”
Way back in 2002, I was told that Howard Coble — then sponsoring a bad net-related bill — didn’t know how to turn on a computer. Coble’s staff said I was just picking on him by pointing that out, but it mattered — someone who had never seen a click-thru user agreement wouldn’t have understood the power the bill gave the recording industry.
As Rep. Rick Boucher said, “I think it is very important that members of Congress who make judgments on this have a working knowledge of computers and the Internet. Many do, but some members are technology-averse, including some, unfortunately, who are in positions of influence.”
Hard to believe it’s still an issue six years later.
Speaking of hard to believe — a candidate using a blog was national news back in 2002.

And of course business:

Is this the end of the organization? Probably not by name and certainly not in the broadest sense of the term. But the traditional, tightly controlled, top down, branded organization is finding itself having to adapt and change. The organizations of the future will not look like the organizations of today.
Whether the organization as we know it survives or not, it is by studying the changing patterns of communication that we will discover the new shape of civil society. Our methods of analysis – and possibly our methods of regulation, funding, and participation – will shift from those that reflect managerial thinking to those that reflect ecosystem thinking.

The definition of ‘work’ is rapidly changing:

What occurred to me is that coworking is generational if you change your definition. Coworking is about this “generation” of people altering the perception of “professional,” “work environment,” “colleague,” etc. It is about hip people writing their own ticket for work. Coworkers are skilled individuals who are prepared to be part of the global community.
——————
And businesses need to be aware of and adapt to this changing workforce. I have been researching this avenue quite a bit and as much as “coworking” is hip and trendy, it is smart and necessary in our changing economy. When software engineers end up doing business with colleagues halfway across the world, what’s to motivate them to come into a traditional office? Isn’t it more interesting for them to be in a coworking space where they can meet people in all walks of life? Businesses will be getting educated if they want to survive and stay competitive. It is just a matter of time before this “generation” of coworkers changes the way businesses do business.

The same goes for science publishing. Paper is dead. Some publishers think mainly about their hardcopy product, the paper journal that is sent out to libraries and subscribers. The website is almost an afterthought: “Hmmm, it would be cool to have something online. All the cool kids are doing it. Perhaps we can even get some revenue by placing our papers online and charging for access”. Other publishers are smarter – they are rethinking the business from scratch, adapting to a completely new world in which everything is online, the new generations find payment for information an abhorrent concept akin to censorship, and the paper is an afterthought – something that the end-user can just print out at home.

Update:
CNN: Telecommuters band together
Related: This is why collaborative education is so important.

7 Comments

Posted in Blogging, Politics, Society, Technology, Workplace

Yes, we need more scientists in office, and they need to know how to run

Posted on March 30, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | Comments Off

SEA is holding a workshop to train scientists to run for office on May 10th at Georgetown University. If you are a scientist or engineer and have been considering running for office or working on an election campaign, then join us for a crash course on how it’s done. Below is a video for the workshop featuring Congressman and former physicist Vern Ehlers.

Hat-tip.

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Posted in Politics, Science Practice

Isaac Newton….

Posted on March 28, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 4 comments

…Savior or Satan?

Will one man’s tryst mean a $200-billion heist will go unreported?
Reading Habits of the Liberal Media (via Melissa).
Getting the Politics of the Press Right: Walter Pincus Rips into Newsroom Neutrality
High-level right-wing discourse
Immigration irrationality
What’s Wrong With This Broadcast: NPR Edition
America will not rest until Obama says Jesus had blue eyes
Feds shift strategy in bid to snare Spitzer: Campaign finance
Your Funny for Today
The Press Has Always Been Sycophantic…
The Fake Science News: Eisen Resigns in Disgrace Over Scandal

Posted in History of Science, Ideology, Politics, Religion

Support Jay Ovittore

Posted on March 28, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | Comments Off

I have announced before my support for my friend and blogger Jay Ovittore in his race to unseat the Republican Congressman Howard Coble. But before he can get there, he first needs to defeat the establishment Democrats in the primaries, still not easy for a true Progressive here in North Carolina.
The last day of this month is the day when the money is counted and you know that these numbers have a big effect on the way press reports on races (since they have no knowledge of the issues, or spine to report them, they use campaign finances as a proxy for who is “winning”) which then become a self-fulfilling prophecy, etc…
So, to help Jay win the primaries (against opponents like this!), he needs the money. It’s easy, through ActBlue – here.

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Posted in North Carolina, Politics

Triangle Blogger Meetup

Posted on March 24, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | Comments Off

Next Triangle blogger meetup is this Wednesday at 6pm at Milltown (307 E. Main St., Carrboro). It is organized by our friends at Orange Politics, for several years the model for local political organizing online. It is likely some of the local politicos and candidates will show up. It is free and open for all and, heck, if you do not want to chat about politics, you don’t have to – we’ll chat about everything and anything anyway, as we usually do 😉

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Posted in Blogging, North Carolina, Politics

On the state of the Media

Posted on March 16, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | Comments Off

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Posted in Media, Politics

The Spitzer files…

Posted on March 13, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 2 comments

Lindsay Beyerstein: Spitzer linked to prostitution ring
Spitzer’s Nixonian hubris
Sex and taxes: How Spitzer allegedly got caught
Spitzer and Suspicious Activity Reports and sex stings
Enough is enough: Feds probe Spitzer’s records back to 1999
Amanda Marcotte: Cut out the stand by your man routine
Ask for facts, get the facts
Elizabeth Pisani: Spitzer’s true folly
Spitzer: cementing a cross-party tradition of hypocrisy
Spitzer: some better ideas for the lapsed abolitionist
Calling “These women”: tell us about your disorders…
Scott Swenson: RealTime: Prostitution Pledge for Politicians
Ed Cone: Aarfy never paid for it in his life

Posted in Politics, Reproductive Health, Sex, Society

Having basic courage and decency is not manly enough, eh?

Posted on March 10, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 9 comments

Why are Republicans (and their voters) so insecure about their masculinity? What are they covering up with their aggression and machismo? Why everything they say and do in an election boils down to some mythical and barbaric notion of manliness:
War cheerleaders ask: ‘Is Obama man enough to be president?’
Thus, everyone who opposes them is always tagged as a ‘sissy’, although it is them who are fearful cowards. If you criticize cowards you are shrill and effeminate and hysterical like a woman, is that how it works?
The religion of balance and centrism
How much you want to bet that these people all vote Republican?

9 Comments

Posted in Ideology, Politics

Congratulations to Bill Foster

Posted on March 9, 2008 by Bora Zivkovic | 2 comments

A Democrat and a physicist won a special election in the Dennis Hastert’s uber-Republican district (also birthplace of Ronald Reagan) yesterday. He is an overall Good Guy.